Gray Area
by Kestrel1
Summary: Rogue and Lance try to work together without destroying each other...


"Feeling better?"  
"Ja, chicken soup is a true wonder of medicine. Vhat happened in school?"  
"Guess who Rogue's partner is for our new group project."  
"Scott again?"  
"Nope, even better. Lance. Oh yeah, you didn't have a partner 'cause you were absent so I like, volunteered."  
The best news Kurt had heard all day. Elsewhere, the conversation wasn't so pleasant. Lance, Pietro, Fred and Todd were hanging out in their favorite alley. "So what'cha gonna do about Little Miss Goth Chick?" Todd asked. "Yeah, you know Ms. Shields is gonna ask you to recruit her," Pietro added. "I dunno," Lance snapped. "Fact is, I gotta put that whole thing aside. If I don't pull an A in this project, I'm getting left back."  
Fred cringed. A fate worse than death. "At least you'll know all the answers the second time around," he offered. "You sayin' I can't do this, Blobby?" Todd chuckled. "It's not that we don't have faith in ya, man, but...with her? You're doomed." Lance turned and walked away. "Where you goin'?" Pietro asked. "To work out," Lance said through clenched teeth.  
"....But the gym is that way..." Todd said as the boys parted ways. After Fred, Todd and Pietro had walked a few blocks, they felt a slight tremor and heard car alarms going off in the distance. "I'm sure glad he doesn't get pissed off around us," Pietro said.  
  
The next day was Saturday, a day for cartoons, videogames, and sleep. But Lance met Rogue bright and early at the library. There was tension between the two mutants, but Lance knew that they had to get working. They only had a week to do this project. "So...what are we supposed to do it on?" "Ah thought you knew." Oh this was going to be fun.  
More than an hour later, they hadn't made much progress. Lance was trying unsuccessfully to find a report on the internet to copy. He glanced over at Rogue, who was surfing punk rock sites. "C'mon," he said, "Gimme a break, I can't do this by myself." Rogue glared at him. "Ah don't need a whole week ta do this."  
"What did I ever do to you?!" Lance finally burst out. "Ya lied to me, tried ta make me fight against mah real friends..." Rogue hissed back. "Read my lips: THAT - WASN'T - ME." Rogue simply got up and walked out. After a second Lance turned his head and checked her out from behind. It was a reflex, and a girl's a girl, he thought. She didn't look that bad, really. But if she didn't want to be touched, why didn't she just wear a turtleneck or something? Lance shrugged. His head hurt too much already.  
  
The library was closed Sunday, and on Monday Lance was absent from school. "I coulda swore he was walking with us today," Fred said. During the first class of the day, however, Lance made his presence felt. The whole building started shaking. From a safe distance away from Bayville High, Lance's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he pictured all the kids diving under their desks.  
At the Xavier Institute, Cerebro picked up the use of a destructive mutant power in the immediate area. Logan heard Chuck's voice in his head as he was polishing his bike, and he was off.  
Lance felt a hand on his shoulder, and he came back to reality. "You keep usin' your power like that and you'll burn out, bub," Logan said from behind. Lance moved his shoulder and rolled his eyes back again. The hand came back on his shoulder. Snikt. "Maybe I should re-phrase that. STOP."  
When the X-Men arrived home that day, they found an unlikely guest waiting for them. "So how was the shelter drill?" Lance chuckled. "Jerk," Jean and Kitty said simultaneously. "Hey, I got out of a Biology test," Evan said. Lance turned to Logan. "Can I leave now?" Logan shrugged. "Thought you had some work to do." Lance cringed. He had like five days left to get the report done. He knew he couldn't copy one off the internet because Rogue would just rat him out.  
Later that day, Kurt, Kitty, Lance and Rogue hit the library. Through their friends, Lance and Rogue discovered that the report was on how World War I affected Europe. But neither one of them really felt like working. It was a Monday, after all. "Look," Lance finally said, "I know you could do this thing the night before it's due and still get an A, but I can't. And if I don't do good on the report, the presentation, everything, its my head on a platter."  
Rogue did a double-take. Presentation? Maybe she did need to work with Lance. No way she was getting up in front of the whole class alone.  
  
Tuesday came, and it was pouring rain since the wee hours of the morning. Their European History teacher asked each group how they were doing, and Lance and Rogue were the only ones that didn't have anything to say. The rest of the school day passed without a problem, but after the final bell Rogue was going home. She didn't feel good. "You don't feel good?" Lance said in disbelief. "We have three more days to do this project!" Rogue kept on walking.  
Lance rolled his eyes back in his head. Suddenly, the sidewalk buckled in front of Rogue and a puddle came flying up in her face. Several people burst out laughing, including Scott and Kurt. Rogue turned around, looking like a drenched zombie, walked over to Lance, and slapped the taste out of his mouth. The laughing stopped when Lance hit the floor, and Scott realized that Rogue had taken off her gloves.  
"Woah," Lance said, dazed, as she walked away.  
  
"That was a cheap shot with Lance yesterday," Scott said the next morning. "Ah do not wanna hear it," Rogue shot back. "He's a loser and ah can do the project alone."  
"What about the presentation?"  
"A few points off won't kill me."  
"You're being pretty selfish, y'know."  
"What?" She hadn't been expecting that.  
"Sure, he's one of the bad guys, but he's still a kid and he's still one of us. And you could really help him out with this if you wanted to. He needs the grade."  
"You're right," she reluctantly mumbled.  
"But you already knew that when you asborbed him, didn't you."  
She nodded.  
That day, however, it was Lance's turn to back out. "Yo Lance," Todd called at the end of the day. "Flea Market across the street from the bowling alley today. Wanna go mess it up?" Lance thought about it for a moment. "Why not," he said, giving up hope for the project. "Hey! Wait up!"  
As fate would have it, Ororo Munroe was shopping at that very flea market, and in the chaos Lance was struck by lightning and basically knocked goofy for the rest of the day.  
  
Thursday: The last day to work on the project. Kurt and Kitty put the finishing touches on their report that day, which mainly focused on Kurt's homeland, Germany. Not knowing what to do, and still smarting from yesterday's shocking experience, Lance sat down in a corner of the library, grabbed a thick book about World War I, and started reading.  
"Hey," someone said. Lance jumped, finding that he had been asleep with his head on page 10 for the last forty-five minutes. It was Rogue. "Hey," he replied, rubbing his eyes and yawning. "Need a hand with that book?" He looked at her as if he was still sleeping. She was offering to help him? "Sure," he said, still waiting for a snotty comment or something. But they worked on the report together until the library closed that evening.  
Lance wanted to thank her without sounding awkward. After all, she just saved him from certain doom. "You wanna go for a burger?" Oh crap, did he really say that? He couldn't have phrased it any worse if he tried. To his surprise, she agreed. But he made sure that she paid for herself and he didn't talk to her that much. The last thing he needed was for one of his friends to see him and think he was on a date with Little Miss Goth Chick.  
  
Friday at last - the report was done, now it was crunch time for the presentation. Lance was psyched; for once he actually knew what to say. Another advantage of not copying a report. But if I turn into a responsible student because of this I'll kill myself, he thought.  
European history came last period and the presentation went off without a hitch. It was mostly Lance doing the talking, he saw that Rogue was pretty overwhelmed by standing in front of a whopping crowd of twenty-eight.  
"Don't think ah owe you anything," she snapped as soon as class was over. Looks like the presentation reminded her of who she was: The High Priestess of Outcasts. "Yeah well," Lance replied in the same tone, "Don't think I owe you anything either."  
Realizing that it was a group project, that they each done their share, and how dumb they sounded, they both turned and stormed off in opposite directions. 


End file.
